Universal access to inventory data also helps with inventory turnover for locations that are carrying excess SKUs. From a competitive standpoint, access to inventory across channels saves sales lost to the competition, and opens up a higher likelihood of future purchases.

Customer service is also heavily impacted by omnichannel initiatives. Allowing customers to buy through any channel and return products to any channel has become table stakes. Omnichannel integration is critical for cross-channel loyalty programs and consistent promotions.

It is 10 times more expensive to acquire a customer than retain one, so offering differentiated customer service that provides consistency of the full customer experience is critical.

When defining the business case, there are some critical questions you need to ask:

Do I have a system of record for customer, product, inventory and order/transaction data that can be easily accessed?